No one thinks last week's response from the City of Annapolis was the last word on the Crystal Spring development, or even the start of the last chapter.

But the document – more or less in line with the views of the advisory Annapolis Environmental Commission and with concerns raised by environmentalists and plan opponents – does make some things clear:

City officials are in no hurry to approve the plan: a combination of retail, senior housing, town houses, and an inn and spa on a 111-acre site off Forest Drive. They take the environmental objections seriously, and are not going to let the developer slough off the requirements of the state Forest Conservation Act.

In short, this long-running story will keep running for a long time to come. There's a good chance it will wind up in court.

As of this writing, we haven't heard Crystal Spring Development's response to the latest city positions. But the developer could be pardoned for concluding that things are drifting backward. When it submitted its first Forest Conservation Plan 14 months ago, the city response was 13 pages. After the second attempt – which followed modifications of the plan prompted by discussions with Mayor Mike Pantelides – the city response was 39 pages.

Yet Maria Broadbent, the director of the city's Department of Neighborhood and Environmental Programs, said, "There has been movement in the right direction … They have done a lot of work. They have shrunk the footprint of the project, put some parking underground, abandoned a roadway in favor of using the existing road."

But, in the city's view, the developer still hasn't justified cutting down roughly half – 44 of 82 acres – of the last large forest on the anachronistically named Forest Drive. The woods have been designated as a priority forest, meaning that under state law they can't be cut down unless it can be demonstrated that not doing so would be an unwarranted hardship for the property owner.

The developer tried to make that argument in its June 24 submission, maintaining that it couldn't remove fewer trees and still realize its "synergistic objective" of linking the development's four major components – senior housing, a village green, retail and town homes. The AEC labeled this contention "specious." Now city officials, in essence, have agreed.

They also want to hear more from the developers about stormwater remediation. And they want a group of cottages moved from the center of the woods closer to Forest Drive.

While many of these secondary issues can be resolved, the gap between the developer and the coalition of neighbors and environmentalists fighting Crystal Spring seems impossible to bridge. With the Forest Conservation Act available as legal ammunition, the opponents are certainly capable of mounting a legal challenge if a plan is approved that appreciably reduces the number of trees. The developer, in turn, has already rumbled about restrictions that could be "construed as an illegal taking of property rights."

We'd like to see this issue resolved to the satisfaction of everyone; so, no doubt, would the city. But roughly five years after discussion on Crystal Spring started, that doesn't seem likely – and it seems even less likely there will be any resolution soon.